California

A report from Berkeley Lab reveals a significant expansion of solar-plus-storage facilities in the U.S. power plant market, highlighting an evolution from frequency to arbitrage and curtailment mitigation markets. The best is yet to come, as ongoing price decreases are still being absorbed by the market and are already being used to fill the interconnection queues with terrawatts of capacity.

According to the U.S. Solar Market Insight Q3 2024 report, in the two years since passage of the IRA the solar industry has added 75 GW of new capacity to the grid, representing over 36% of all solar capacity built in U.S. history.

One solution is to aggregate distributed energy resources with energy management systems and energy storage, into virtual power plants, which are proving their worth as key players in increasing grid capacity and balancing the grid. 

Battery blazes at Otay Mesa and Escondido prompted calls for a temporary halt on new sites but the local authority decided instead to extend a requirement to include details of fire safety systems as part of planning applications.

The company’s proprietary technology is enabling traditional lead-acid battery makers to offer what the company says are safe, sustainable and substantially higher-powered nickel-zinc batteries.

Two projects that would store heat in firebricks for industrial use may receive federal funding, in part because the projects are deemed highly replicable.

New report says power prices will drive behind-the-meter installation growth.

Highlighting new solar panels on display at the annual RE+ conference in California, one of the nation’s largest clean energy events.

Also on the rise: U.S. clean energy installations grow 91% year-over-year in Q2. Flexible interconnection at far lower cost and nearly twice the speed. And more.

Enphase Energy introduced a power control feature that allows customers to expand their solar and storage without triggering a transition to the less lucrative NEM 3.0 billing system.